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Ancestors Arc
The Ancestors Story Arc of the webcomic "Romantically Apocalyptic" started Issue and had its finale on Issue 121. *The new story arc begins with Mr. Charles Snippy being attacked by a hostile, talking snowflake of an unknown origin. Zee Captain solves the problem by tossing his mug full of tea into the face of the sniper. *In a conversation with Pilot about the new squad member Engie and Captain's mug, Snippy learns, to his surprise, that Pilot is not the one who supplies Captain with tea. Since Snippy hasn't done so either, nor has he ever seen Captain refilling the mug, the sniper decides to inspect the mysterious object while Captain and Engie are away. Snippy is not able to find anything out of the ordinary about the mug before he is discovered by Pilot, who tackles the unfortunate sniper to the ground. At this point, a ladybug flies into the scene and starts a dialog with the mug about the progress of a seemingly ongoing assassination attempt. When Snippy overhears the conversation, he convinces himself that he is going insane due to radiation poisoning. *The ladybug, exasperated by the incompetence of the mug, offers Snippy a job as a hired killer, the target being Captain for this particular mission. Pilot, who witnessed the entire exchange alongside Snippy, runs off to warn the governor. The ladybug goes after him, leaving a very confused sniper behind. *Upon returning, Captain commands Snippy to search for Pilot, but the latter has disappeared without a trace. When planning to report back to Captain, Snippy walks in on the mug, the ladybug, and even the straw plotting on poisoning Captain. Terrified, Snippy decides to look for his crewmates in the wasteland, but finds himself unable to locate any of them. He soon notices that he is being followed by, to his dismay, Captain's mug. *While Snippy tries to get information about Pilot's whereabouts out of the mug, Captain appears whilst sitting in a chair on extremely thin ice. Captain demands his mug back, but Snippy, in an attempt to protect Captain, refuses and threatens to destroy the mug instead. *The Arbitrator suddenly makes an entrance by shattering the ice beneath Snippy. It is the second representative of the Alien Invaders Union, of course sent to capture the Captain. Snippy is briefly disintegrated and restored by the Arbitrator. The Arbitrator claims that a local scan for intelligent bipeds shows only Snippy in the vicinity. Due to the sniper holding the mug, the alien concludes that Snippy and Captain are one and the same person. Snippy does not believe in the Captain being a split personality of himself, but, to his complete surprise, he digs up the Captain's gasmask, goggles, hat, and the red scarf in his backpack instead of the supplies he was so certain to have kept in its pockets. The confusion prompts Snippy to question his sanity and recall the strange and unexplainable instances always happening to Captain, eventually resulting in the sniper suffering a deep identity crisis. *Snippy thinks of the days shortly before the apocalypse when the science team he guided into the Deadzone fell victim to the "wishing well" anomaly and the scientists began killing each other out of hunger for power. It turned out that while Snippy tried to block out the anomaly's voice -- which promised to grant him every single wish he desired -- he came to the realization that he might have subconsciously caused the apocalypse due to his irritation toward humanity being entirely too dependent upon the ANNET system. When the sniper returned from the ill-fated tour much later, the city of Eureka was already destroyed. Snippy wasn't even sure of whether the plan concocted by 1% of the population to destroy the ANNET's transmitter towers was carried out or if he himself had sabotaged the ANNET's core before going out on that last tour. *As another surprise for Snippy, the Captain's red scarf becomes animated and reveals its true nature as the Biomatrix. It does not try to kill Snippy, however, and instead suggests a claim for diplomatic immunity. Nevertheless, the Arbitrator had already made the decision to take Snippy to the Galactic Court for Captain's crimes and to destroy the Earth by releasing a black matter drop into the planet's atmosphere, summoning a black hole. *According to the Biomatrix, the aliens feared that the uncontrolled and chaotic ANNET system might infect other planets as the Earth was already contaminated by it from deep underground to up in the Tropopause. The Arbitrator then confines Snippy, the Biomatrix, and the mug in a stasis field, activates the black hole and prepares to leave the Earth's orbit. Due to being that close to the event horizon, Snippy perceives the destruction of the Earth as going on forever. Not willing to witness the eternal end of his home planet, he asks the Biomatrix to construct a memory for him that he could escape to. For unknown reasons, the Biomatrix actually agrees to grant his wish. The Biomatrix decides to take the sniper back to the earliest genetic human memories it is able to find in Snippy's bloodline. *Since the genetic memories are not as complete or easy to read as Snippy's own lifetime memories, the Biomatrix has sometimes to fill gaps with newer content, which it thinks will fit in the context. Because of that the memories are not 100% historically correct. *Snippy wakes up as a caveman during the last ice age, reciting a terrible dream of black fire consuming all, being accused by a god of being Loki (Captain) and finding Loki's mask in his pouch. The caveman Snippy draws the dream on the walls of his cave in order to forget it. When he leaves for hunting, he encounters a pack of wolves, but a demon animal in the form of a caribou interrupts. The Biomatrix found an anomaly in the genetic memory that it wants to show to Snippy. Deep within a crevasse of a glacier, Snippy as his caveman ancestor finds the Captain's mug buried deep in the ice. Snippy's original memories flood into his mind upon seeing the mug and his own true reflection in the ice. He has no idea how the mug could have gotten there so far into the past, but he is sure it's somehow all Captain's fault. *Snippy wakes up in a new memory, this time as a young woman named Amber of Snippy, who resides in a world that seems to be a possible future of Earth. This outlook to future events might come true, if the black hole attack of the Arbitrator is stopped in time. *Amber's dreams show her a dead town, a black vortex, and a lone figure, who she describes as having no face or the intertwined faces of millions (Captain). The "faceless one" plans to drink the black vortex with a straw and vows to find Snippy wherever he may be. *Amber is determined to consult her guardian angel, a separate man she has always seen instead of herself when gazing into a mirror. The "black and white knight" she speaks of is, in fact, the post-apocalyptic Snippy in his regular sniper attire. *Later on, Amber decides to go for a walk, but is approached by a knight, who's coat of arms shows a red heart on black like that on the Captain's mug. He warns her that the "Admins" have taken over the Capitol and have sent out "Mods". The Mods are armed with the "Word" and are attempting to wipe out the "Local Hosts". He then advises that Amber should flee before they confront her and "permanently ban" her. *Amber stubbornly refuses to abandon her home. She doesn't understand why the Admins would act like this as they have status and acceptance in the Capitol and are no longer hunted like witches. She rationalizes that the knight might have lost his sanity while searching for the "Infinite Grail", which Amber believes to be just a legend of old. *In the branches just above Amber sits a Biomatrix-like crow and the Lifealope-like songbird. The Biomatrix-crow takes control of the Lifealope-bird and absorbes it into its own body, leaving only an extra head and pair of feet protruding from the black and red crow. *Amber is concerned about the amount of Life-walkers (more avatars of the Lifealope) gathering in the forest near her home. They seem to wait for something to happen. *She wonders, whether the Admins may have found another legendary artifact, a book with the notes of the "First Architect". While she still ponders, the mostly useless powers of the Mods to summon strange items and that the legendary book could throw the Capitol into chaos, if it were to be found, another knight approches her home. *This knight appears to be a Mod as he calls hellfire upon Amber. It seems the Admins indeed found Engie's journal and discovered the activation code for the orbital ion cannon. *Amber regrets not listening to the warnings earlier. *Snippy awakes in the office of the Biomatrix, which is too still part of the artificial world the Biomass has created for him. The Biomatrix informs him, that Snippy's subconsciousness is now connected to all his genetical memories from past present and due to an error the future as well. *Since Snippy's and the Biomatrix' real bodies are still entrapped in the Arbitrator's forcefield, the Biomass suggests, that Snippy uses the mug to escape. *In the future timeline, when dying in the blast from the orbital ion cannon, Amber gets connected to the Biomatrix, which seems to have spread over the whole Earth in her time. The Biomatrix claims to reabsorb her due to a pact made long ago with Amber's ancestor Charles Snippy. *The future Global-Biomatrix tries to stop the Mod, but its avatars are crushed by a schoolbus summoned and dropped on them from high altitude. The Biomatrix shows concern about the seemingly dormant ANNET reawakening if her devices like the orbital ion cannon are used too recklessly. *Meanwhile in presence in the ruined city, Pilot still fights the evil ladybug, who wants Captain dead. It turns out there is a whole swarm of them and they carry Pilot away to a cube-shaped flying fortress (Red Panda) in an attempt to reconnect him to his account. The ladybugs are indeed agents of the ANNET, who tries to convert Pilot back into one of her neural interface controlled servants. The ANNET seems to have constructed or reactivated a new android body for herself. *Engie, who got separated from Captain has discovered the black hole, too, but believes it not to be real and assumes that he is going insane from food poisoning instead. *The Arbitrator notices, that his black hole is suddenly collapsing, it thinks this is somehow Snippy's fault. Desperate Snippy wakes the mug and a purple eye opens in the middle of its red heart. The mug shoots a mini-ion-beam from the purple eyes and cuts the stasisfield, the Arbitrator and the Arbitrator's ship in halves. As a result, Snippy, Biomatrix and the mug are plummeting from orbit towards the Earth. *While the Biomatrix is not able to slow their fall, it at least manages to keep Snippy alive upon reentering the Earth's atmosphere. Snippy's fall is broken by landing on zee Captain, not a very pleasant experience for everybody involved. The mug manages to land safely in Captain's hand. Category:Arcs